An attempt at solving the myth of an American anthem.
Illustration by Jonathan Carlson
I was driving back from Richmond with my wife and youngest son when we decided to veer westward from our normal route home. Instead of slogging along on interstates, we meandered up skinny ribbons of blacktop through woods, country estates, and vineyards, paralleling the Blue Ridge as it works north toward our home, a half-mile east of the West Virginia state line.
Not long after we crossed Virginia State Route 7 in Loudoun County, my wife, knowing that we were now parallel with the West Virginia line and the Shenandoah River, looked at me with an impish grin, then softly sang those three place names as John Denver did in his famous song: “West Vir-gin-ya. Blue Ridge Mountains. Shen-an-do-ah River.”
“Don’t do it!” I begged.
No quarter was given: “Country rooooooads, take me hoooome, to the plaaaace, I beloooooong.”
“Dangit!” I joined in. My son, Eric, didn’t.
As my wife and I flubbed the verses (“Life is old there … blowing like the breeze … Miner’s lady. Something, something. Dark and dusty, painted on the sky.”), I realized: Something was wrong with this song. “West Virginia.” “Blue Ridge Mountains.” “Shenandoah River.”
“That’s a place that can barely exist, isn’t it?” I asked. We all vaguely knew the answer, because our Virginia home sits within a mile of all these things. Eric pulled up Google Maps (you may want to grab a map now, too). The Shenandoah River starts near Front Royal in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. About eight miles north of Virginia State Route 7, it passes into the extreme Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, where it runs north along the western base of the Ridge for about 15 miles before meeting with the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry. The river is generally a mile or less from the West Virginia border which runs along the top of the Ridge. There are no mountains to the west of the river, only the flat or gently rolling “Breadbasket of the Confederacy.”
Meaning, the evocative scene in the song describes a place quite different than the deep-in-a-remote-hollow-next-to-a-coal-mine place I had always imagined. The song wasn’t written by Denver alone—much of the text was penned by longtime D.C.-area resident Bill Danoff—but that almost makes it worse that the famous West Virginia/ Blue Ridge Mountains/Shenandoah River only exists for a 15-mile-long, 1-mile-wide strip traversed nearly entirely by only one road. Plus, I had never seen a miner’s lady who was a stranger to blue water, nor a “dark and dusty” sky. I vowed to investigate.
The next morning I drove up to Harper’s Ferry and followed Chestnut Hill Road and Mission Road along the Ridge and river toward West Virginia’s Shannondale Springs Wildlife Management Area, one of my favorite birding spots in the region. I took two wrong turns in the woods, and I drove through old villages melting back into nature. Honestly, I thought, you could drive this road, perhaps at dusk or night, and be in the song. Although I know now that Danoff had never been to West Virginia, and he and Denver were just conjuring melodious words to compose the song, they accidentally described a place that is sort-of real.
But, but, after talking to several locals, the songwriters blew it when they suggested this is coal-mining country. “Not a single one,” one oldtimer from Shannondale said. “No coal in the Blue Ridge here. Well-known fact.” And so, no darkness and dustiness painted on the skies, presumably by coal. As for never seeing blue water: The Shenandoah is plenty blue, as is the reservoir of the area’s Mountain Lake Club.
This tiny stretch of West Virginia was, like the Virginia side of the Ridge, well known for its high-carbon charcoal—made from the trees of the Ridge—which was often used in the iron mills in the area. Indeed, resources and old-time industry wise, this area has more in common with our state than with West Virginia.
As do the people. Of those who work away from home, a majority work in Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Virginia, not in West Virginia. Houses are $100,000 to $150,000 cheaper if you go one mile west of our house in Virginia. (We’ve been tempted to make the move, too.)
“I’ve never been in a coal mine, I’ve seen plenty of blue water, and I’ve never been called ‘Mountain Momma,’” said a ridgetop resident who works at the Purcellville Wells Fargo Bank branch. “We’re a bunch of Virginia commuters. That’s why (Virginia State Highway 9) is packed every morning and night.” And “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is West Virginia’s state song? It could as easily be Virginia’s state song. Just remove the bogus coal miner references and a few “West”s and you have an evocative description of the place my wife, son, and I longed for that evening driving back from Richmond.
Ultimately, as Denver said many times, this song is more about a feeling than an actual place. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” has remained iconic for 50 years not because it inaccurately describes only a few neighbors just to our west, but because it describes that feeling we all get longing for the place we call home.
This article originally appeared in our December 2019 issue.
